When most people hear the catch phrases Industry 4.0 or digital economy, it is the outcome that ultimately resonates. Specifically, thoughts of customer driven experiences whether it is through mass customization, or the manufacturer’s ability to provide ongoing service in a seamless manner where products simply work.
Whether the service is provided directly through the manufacturer or a strategic partner, the field worker understandably plays a critical role in delivering this experience. For instance, keeping heavy equipment, utilities or complex medical products such as an MRI is an ongoing commitment.
To survive within this fast-paced environment, field representatives need to be able to leverage and manipulate the mountains of data coming from deployed equipment. These workers thrive when they are mobilized and as automated as possible. Of course, the demands and the requirements are changing constantly, and these growing field organizations are often quite distanced from IT.
Empowering the field
Understandably, when paired with the right applications, mobile technologies can provide instrumental. This is where ProntoForms has created a niche by providing a platform that enables people in the field to build whatever they need in a no-code environment.
As one of 18 low-code companies featured in Gartner’s Low-Code Application Platform (LCAP) Magic Quadrant, ProntoForms provides a field-focused LCAP to enable field workers to deploy custom apps that improve CSAT, streamline operations, collect critical data throughout an asset’s lifecycle and turn field teams into new revenue generators.
“Fortunately, there is a new generation of field workers who have embraced the concept of becoming citizen developers where they can leverage their understanding the field organization workflow to build meaningful applications,” says ProntoForms CEO Alvaro Pombo. “Our platform accomplishes this at a low cost, without needing Java developers although it still has the context of a strong secure IT framework.”
Benefiting the masses?
“Fortunately, everyone operating in the field today has devices. And IT is more educated today about how low code/no code platforms work. They understand that fieldworkers need to be able to dynamically leverage technology to continual improve their effectiveness – and they are getting better about accepting it,” he says.
The challenge now is how to permeate the applications that these citizen developers create in a manner that the new apps can impact the organization at scale. “In some of these field organizations you can be talking thousands or even tens of thousands of subscribers,” says Pombo. “Realistically, it is going to take channel communication and endorsement to get their peers to use the growing number of applications.”
